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Ran out of 'likes' for the day, so a big thumbs up. I hope Bandai follows through with the VF-22 after this.

Hear hear!

And thus you have the conundrum that Yamato and Bandai have solved by shifting their focus towards fighter or battroid, respectively. I wish Bandai would have handled the backpack differently in a way that would have minimized its depth, but I'm also just grateful to finally have a YF-21 with decently proportional legs in battroid. I hope the backpack won't cause stability or balance issues, as I'm not a fan of using a stand for my robot toys; they should stand on their own as a matter of good engineering, in most cases. I guess we'll see when these things start releasing next month. If I read those dates right, it doesn't appear like we'll be getting ours on this side of the pond until October. Eh, time to save up and to catch some reviews before ours arrive. as always with these niche, expensive, high-end toys, I hope it's enjoyable, well-toleranced, with good durability, materials, articulation, complex-but-fun transformation, and other great features. I hope it's a damned fine toy b/c we've been waiting a long time for something to compare with or replace the Yamato on our shelves and I hope this does the job.

New promotional image for Illustrious Class MCT-J02 TAKEDA SHINGEN.

I guess the VF-22 is up tomorrow on the U.S. pbandai store Looks like $56

Enjoying the Springer reviews, @mikeszekely. Saltus is my MP Springer of choice as well, primarily b/c of the car mode's non-canonical but IMO better looking wide rear end. That said, his chopper mode leaves somewhat to be desired, but his bot mode looks really good, and since that's how I display (like most TF collectors I assume), I remain happy with the choice. I remember when Allen came on the scene, but I think the chunkier proportions left me cold. Anyway, I passed on him. This review is a nice retrospective, and I'm glad you shone a light on him b/c, for its time and despite the creative liberties taken, it's a pretty good take on the character and the alts are some of the best-executed of any of the 3P Springers, including Saltus. Hats off, too, to Unique Toys for living up to their name with such a creative transformation. Everybody else's takes, including Hasbro's, are fairly boilerplate insofar as the shoulders and arms form the front fenders/wings, legs form the aft hull and tail of the chopper or rear section of the car, and the chest forms the hood and grill. Furthermore, those retractable landing skids are just a wonderful touch that's so lacking in all the others. I love that little feature and wish it was more prevalent on other Springer figs. I'm hoping you'll eventually take a look at XTB's Virtus. Judging from pics, it looks to be another really good representation of the character. The heli form suffers the most concession with the shaping of its aft hull leading into the tail, but in terms of car and bot modes, weapon storage, accessories, and just overall capture, it's a respectable effort that IMHO ranks among the best thus far. I will point out, however, the fallacy of releasing this guy with two small human figs who obviously can't fit in the tiny two-seater cockpit (with steering wheels no less!). Ah that old pickle, mass shifting.

I don’t know if that’s a betrayal to earth unified colonies or to Macross itself. Either way it does look cool

Yes rainbow canopy & white landing gears haha. I do intend to get the Yammie VT-1. Usually when a DX is announced, the corresponding Yammie will drop in price. But somehow, this hasn't started happening yet for the Yammie - perhaps gotta wait till when the DX is actually released.

And that too.

I concur.

I too, really like the idea of combining both YF-23 & the Q-Rau and resulting in a really cool hybrid of a YF-21. Yet the YF-21 stands out as an anomaly among Kawamori's designs, as it does seem to have the most amount of anime magic / proportion shifting among the various VFs. The other Plus & Mac7 VFs also have quite a bit, but don't seem to be up to the degree the YF-21 has. I think Kawamori was also very much enamored by the YF-23 + Q-Rau idea, tried his hardest to make it work, but in a not so charitable interpretation he succumbed to anime magic in the end and cheated.

And white landing gear!

Aaawww. Don't do that. I already sold mine years ago. Don't want to hunt them down again. Even for its rainbow canopies.

I used to have Yamato's VF-1D and VT-1 before. I remember all the oranges are somehow in same tone. My safe guess is it's why they probably used deep orange than lighter orange like the HMR's. That way it's consistent whether it's painted on the beige plastic parts or against the same orange plastic.

That VT-1 is hands down the luckiest find I've ever come across so far. The legs, boosters, leg armor, backpack & chest are all the same shade of orange on mine. The Armor is all molded in orange while the rest of the Valkyrie appears to be painted orange over the ivory/cream colored plastic. Even if you're getting the Bandai DX version, which looks stunning I'd still recommend tracking down the Yamato V.2 as well.

One aspect Bandai has improved in recent memory (ie past couple years or so), is that they now supply plenty of pics when soliciting orders and they always put Battroid in various cool poses. For this VF-4 reissue I was looking forward to discovering what poses Bandai put it in, seeing that this VF has one of the most awkward Battroid sculpt, but there aren't many and there's only a lone Battroid pic in a dynamic pose..

Yes, this is correct. It's huge based on the fact that the legs are thicker compared to Yamato's. Which to be honest, I like since Yamato's are so thin. But seeing the DX Battroid's legs at this point on the photos, in which the leg's width is thinner than its length due to the front of the leg has that potruding section like Q'Rau's, I was just wondering if the said nacelles will still be thicker if the legs are rotated in Fighter mode like Yamato's. Yes, it will not be as thin or sleek as Yamato's but atleast it's not going to be as bulky. Also, it's worth noticing that the DX middle inner section of the backpack is occupied with some parts whereas on the Yamato it's blank since that's where the legs and feet rest in Fighter mode. To be fair with Bandai, I really marvel when it comes to the engineering and stuff of a transforming toy. But somehow it can't be help where one company tried to make it accurate as the anime goes, and one tried it differently and away from the source. This is just my take until the next transforming YF-21. For now as my plan goes, these DX will be displayed in Battroid and Yamato's in Fighter modes.

That's a really great deal for a loose VT-1. I don't have a Yammie VT-1, so now I'm curious what Yamato did to handle the orange. Did they manage to match the painted & molded plastic nicely, or was all the orange painted?

This is a gorgeous project, I'm super excited to grab one! I think $150-$200 is fair for a complex resin kit like this. Mostly I'm just glad to see it exists!

The differences lie in that the circled one on the right is the DX with its HUGE nacelles to accommodate the legs and the circled one on the left is the HG model kit which appears to be in delimiter mode given its lack of arms and no sign of them or the legs extended below. The HG model appears to have better proportions between fighter and battroid, although I believe they employ partsforming to achieve the ideal look of each mode. I'm not a big fan of that approach, however, as I prefer transforming toys that use creative engineering and techniques to solve the various challenges, especially when it's done exceedingly well. Indeed. In real world, the YF-22, F-22 by extension, and the YF-23 are all necessarily large fighters to accommodate both large supercruise-capable engines and greater internal weapons storage. Kawamori-san mentions both in the hjweb article and in his Macross Designer's Notes the fact that he based the YF-21 on the YF-23, one of his favorite aircraft (and mine), and his early drawings really reflect that as he continued to evolve the design to its final form. The marriage of the YF-23's silhouette and the Quedluun-Rau's signature form into the YF-21's design still stands as one of his most unique designs among his extensive catalog. I wish he'd given more consideration, however, to the possibility of toys being made from that design, as perhaps he may have reconsidered some elements, like the leg storage, to make them more practical for 3D application. As it is, he did toy and model makers no favors with the extent of animation license taken in its design. Despite its warts, I'm anticipating my copy of the DX YF-21. Since I display all my valks in battroid, the Yammie YF-21 always fell short due to its disproportionately skinny legs and loose hip joints. It was unstable and looked awkward and I finally put it back in its box some years ago. In all other regards beyond those legs, Yamato created a nigh-perfect YF-21 and I would love to see Arcadia amend the design to accommodate larger legs and hopefully stronger hip joints, and rerelease it as a 2.0 version. Between that and the DX, I think the Arcadia amended version would be superior given the base from which they started, at least aesthetically. The DX might beat them in the articulation dept unless Arcadia made improvements there as well. I'd certainly be down for a copy. Until such an announcement is forthcoming, all we can do is hope and save our pennies. Lots and lots of pennies. 😄

Yesterday, when talking about Apache, I mentioned a few times that at the time of its release Saltus and Virtus weren't out, that the only real competition was Big Spring and Allen. Of course, I'd reviewed Big Spring and included him in the photos with Apache. But I still felt like we were missing some context, so silly me, I went and got a copy of Unique Toys Allen. I think you can't talk about Allen without first talking about Unique Toys. They were one of early names in the 3rd party scene, breaking into the market with a collection of Predacons that kind of fit with what Hasbro was doing at the time, but was also not as good as what MMC was doing with their own Predacons. They put out a few more Generations-style figures like the well-regarded Mania King and their Terrorcons, but the market was already changing. Fans Toys had released Quakewave the same year that Unique Toys put out their Predacons, and by the time they completed their Terrorcons Fans Toys had done Bombshell, Perceptor, and several Dinobots, KFC had done their Blaster, MMC put out their first Ocular Max release, X-Transbots had put out Wheelie, Huffer, Scourge, and Megatron, and Badcube had put out their Huffer, Brawn, Warpath, Sunstreaker, and had started on their Insecticons. The market was clearly shifting toward more MP-style releases, and Unique Toys was kind of already dipping their toes into that water under their sister company, DX9, as they'd released a Mirage, Rodimus Prime, Galvatron, Astrotrain, and Blitzwing. Those last two are really where I want to focus, because they, along with Unique Toys' versions of Octane and Sandstorm, set the template for Allen. They're all big figures, clearly meant to fit scale with other Masterpiece and MP-style 3P figures, but they're also from an era when the ultra-Sunbow aesthetic hadn't been fully established yet, and Unique Toys/DX9 were offering more stylized designs as in afraid of risking Hasbro or Takara's ire. And we definitely see that in Allen. He's a very bright green, with spots that would be G1 Springer's darker olive coming across as barely a different tone. There are extra flourishes, like yellow stripes on his shoulders, some gunmetal accents added to his abs, shoulders, and forearms, molded vents on his shins that aren't present on the Sunbow sheet, and a bright, clean white used on his thighs, hands, and neck. He also has some weirdly puffy proportions. The thing that's the most out-of-place for me, though, are his bright yellow feet. Looking around his body there are some other things that I'm going to talk about more when we do his alt modes, and some more more gunmetal accents. I want to draw special attention to the piston details on his elbows, though. It's a detail not not on the Sunbow model, but one that UT added that actually serves a purpose beyond simply looking neat. Anyway, like Apache Allen is a little light on accessories. He's just got two, a gun and a sword. The gun as a sculpt that definitely seems Springer-esque, but I'm not sure about it being entirely green save for the white handle. The sword is a bit more stylized than we've seen on other Springers, with a thick blade, round hilt, and prominent pommel. It, at least, has some painted bits and does look pretty cool. Allen's head can look up slightly, but not down, on the hinge in his head, but his neck is on a double joint for transformation that you can also employ to kind of stretch his neck up and forward, improving his upward tilt and giving him actually good downward tilt as well. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and move laterally a little over 90 degrees on ratchets (no Hot Rod shoulders, either). His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His thumb is fixed, and his middle, ring, and pinky fingers are molded as a single curled piece with a hinge at the base. His index finger is separate from the other, hinged at the base and an addition middle knuckle. His waist swivels. His hip skirts do NOT move, which unfortunately limits his ratcheted hips to about 45 degrees forward and just under 90 degrees backward and laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets. His feet can tilt up but not down, and a set of double hinges for transformation gives him about 90 degrees of ankle pivot. So, a bit lacking in the hips, but if I'm being fair the hips still have enough range for some dynamic poses and honestly cost him less than Apache's abysmal shoulders. Allen can hold his gun and sword in either hand, using the time-honored method of plugging tabs on their handles into slots on his palms. The large peg on the middle of the sword's hilt can also be plugged into Allen's back, allowing him to store his sword in robot mode. I can't find any storage for the gun, though. Here's where things get fun, and you can see shades of the "turn it inside out" engineering that UT would later use to great effect on their Bayverse figures. You see, the front end and grill? That's not his chest. His chest is under the vehicle, and when it folded down it provided the clearance to pull a whole second version out from the inside of his torso that covered over it and his head. His backpack pulls away, then instead of forming the fenders his arms fold straight out behind his back and the backpack tabs into them to form the top half of the vehicle. The entire top of his body rocks back, then his legs turn inside out. some of it winds up turning, but otherwise staying mostly in place to form the rear with the wheels and fins. But the front of his legs spin around and stretch out, filling in the bottom of the vehicle but also carrying his feet up to the front of the car where they form the fenders and front wheels. It can be a little daunting the first time you do it until you figure out what goes where, but once you learn it it's honestly one of the easier and most fun transformations I've encountered on a Springer toy. And, trust me, by now I've done a lot of Springers. Now, going into this I was aware of the liberties Unique Toys had taken with their Octane. Their Sandstorm traded a dune buggy mode for an enclosed-cabin that was referred to by some as "the Wienermobile". And, given the liberties taken with Allen's robot mode, I think I kind of dismissed him at the time as being too stylized for my collection and just assumed that applied to his alt modes, too. But, actually having Allen in hand, I'm a bit surprised to note that his car mode is fairly Sunbow accurate. I mean, yeah, they added some gunmetal accents to the engines on top, and for whatever reason they cast his fins in green plastic and added some yellow accents when they'd traditionally be as gray as the part they're attached too. But the colors are pretty good, otherwise, and the proportions are more correct than Apache or Big Spring. With the caveat that I like the liberties that MMC took with Saltus, one could argue that Allen's actually the best car mode we've seen so far when it comes to capturing the Sunbow art. Like most of the other MP Springers, Allen's got rolling rubber tires and a cockpit that can open. There's not much to look at in there but the molded suggestion of a seat back, though. The handle on his gun can fold it to reveal a tab, and that tab fits nicely into a slot on either side of the vehicle. As for his sword, you can either plug it into the top of the roof, or the peg on the hilt happens to fit into the rotors outside the rear wheels. Sadly, just like Apache, there's no flip-out headlights. Getting to helicopter mode isn't terribly different than going to car mode. Much of the difference is simply turning his legs further inside out, stretching them into the tail boom, then you twist the bits with the translucent plastic around so that they can tab into the boom instead of the folded stabilizers that were on top of the boom. The fenders slide back into their helicopter position by sliding the shins that they're attached to backward. The front wheels fold down and allow for the wings to fold out from under the fenders. The only trick to remember is that there are bits on sliders that fold out from Allen's robot sides to fill in the gap vacated by the wings under the fenders to keep everything nice and solid. One again, the helicopter is honestly more Sunbow accurate than I gave it credit for. There's some gray on the sides where his shin panel forms the body of the helicopter that's really green on the Sunbow art, but better than then green shins in bot mode, eh? The landing skids don't have quite the right shape, but they're appropriately yellow (with a touch of that gunmetal accent). We could bemoan the fact that the rudder is green instead of gray again, but that's kind of offset by the fact that the entire tail boom and the horizontal stabilizers are green. This is the only Springer I've looked at that that doesn't have some gray on the boom, and that doesn't have gray stabs. Indeed, you've probably seen so many Springer toys with gray on the boom and gray stabs that you might think that's correct, but look at that Sunbow model sheet again. Green is Sunbow accurate! Aside from green on the rudder and a few yellow and gunmetal accents, it's the propellor that has the most liberties taken simply because it's angular, thick, and gray instead of basic thin green rectangular blades. About that, of course the sword forms the rotor, but the transformation is more unique than I'm used to. Rather than splay the blade out and use the handle as the connection, the entire sword splits in half, then one half turns over and you push it back together. This allows you to use the big peg from the hilt as the connection point. Allen's cockpit still opens if that's your thing, and you can still plug the rifle into the side. But Allen's got one more thing to talk about, something none of of the other Springers have had thus far. Actual fold out landing skids! That's right, he's not just resting on his tummy and tail. Green skids are part of the stuff that unfolds with the wings from out of the foot fenders, and a white one is stored under the tail rotor. I have to be honest... I'm not entirely sure what motivated me to buy Apache and Allen. I just sort of realize that I wasn't super familiar with them, despite owning a few other Springer toys, when we were talking about the upcoming Studio Series version. I figured I'd play with them a bit, get that experience, take a few pics and write about them, then sell them off again. I mean, with Apache's articulation issues and Allen's unique aesthetic neither were really a threat to Saltus in my MP display, right? Right. Kinda. I mean, yeah, I told you flat out yesterday that I don't recommend Apache, that Saltus is the better MP Springer. And I will indeed be listing him for sale soon. And yeah, Allen's bot mode is definitely far enough removed from Sunbow G1 to disqualify him from most people's MP displays. Indeed, as a display piece, Apache is a more accurate robot, and it does sort of help to see why so many people jumped on that train at the time. I'm not going to give Allen a recommend. But, I've decided against selling Allen, and that's because Allen brings something to the table that even Siege Springer didn't... Allen is a really fun toy. He's chunky and sturdy. It feels good to move his joints and pose him, and he's actually fun to transform. Saltus gets to stay in my display, but Allen gets to stay on my desk where I can play with him.

I know it's a model kit versus a transforming figure. But I couldn't help wonder if they made the legs turn like Yamato's would it help to make that backpack's jet 'bump' thinner and not so thicker like how it is now. Ofcourse, as how Macross official product goes, Kawamori-san sure did approved this.

I think at this point it's past the point where he can actually care about the differences. Bandai gonna Bandai.